{"id":108976,"title":"Salem Robotics - Autonomous robots for hazardous spaces","tagline":"We deploy robots to perform autonomous inspections and surveys in hazardous spaces, like nuclear. ","body":"We're [Caleb](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caleb-horan) and [Janak](https://www.linkedin.com/in/janak-panthi), PhD roboticists from UT Austin. We've spent a combined 15 years in nuclear, 10 of which deploying autonomous robots at Los Alamos National Lab, and we're building Salem Robotics.\\\n**TLDR:** Our software turns robots into independent survey and inspection workers at your facility.\n\n[Launch Video](https://youtu.be/7xObOE6knZM)\n\n## **Life and death pain worth $Millions/year**\n\nAt every nuclear facility, highly trained radiation-protection teams spend hours each day walking the site, filling out hand-drawn maps, and searching for something life-threatening: radiation. IN THE BEST CASE they find nothing, and still have to return to their posts to transcribe the data into a computer before doing the actual high-value work they were assigned. These surveys are time-consuming, dangerous, expensive, and prone to data inconsistencies that carry direct regulatory consequences.\n\nThe same pain exists well beyond nuclear. Whether it's gas-leak inspection or ammonia surveys, similar workflows run across oil, gas, chemical, biological, space, and other hazardous facilities.\n\n## **What we do**\n\nAn operator defines the work from a simple dashboard; the robot then navigates the site, handles instruments, opens doors, turns valves, collects measurements, and generates structured, auditable, compliance-ready reports. We're hardware-agnostic, so plants run our software on robots they already own, many of which sit in a closet today as \"$200k paperweights, \" or we can provide the right robot for the job. Our stack is designed for safety-critical infrastructure and comes with theoretical safety guarantees, exactly what regulators and plant leadership require. Our core manipulation framework was not possible before and is based on **breakthrough founder research** published and presented at the most prestigious IEEE journals and conferences in the world. \n\nWe're already in active contract-scoping conversations across the nuclear industry and oil \u0026amp; gas.\n\n**Our asks**\n\n* Intros to operations or innovation leaders in nuclear or similar hazardous sites (oil, gas, chem, bio, space).\n* Advice from founders who've sold into safety-critical industrial environments.\n* Sites where routine surveys are frequent, hard to staff, or particularly painful? We'd love to hear about them.\n\nComments, Emails, and DMs welcome. \\\n[Engage@salemroboticsinc.com](mailto:Engage@salemroboticsinc.com)","slug":"SLg-salem-robotics-autonomous-robots-for-hazardous-spaces","created_at":"2026-08-04T19:00:03.963Z","updated_at":"2026-09-19T09:11:25.171Z","total_vote_count":29,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SLg-salem-robotics-autonomous-robots-for-hazardous-spaces","share_image_url":"//bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/yc-og-image-c440a0ad1dacfb86eeeb343717479cc54d256614449b4ef719977a0a451f8bc8.png","company":{"id":33408,"name":"Salem Robotics Inc","slug":"salem-robotics-inc","url":"https://salemroboticsinc.com","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/fbf386dc8fa91340ed1cce1b80613f66e88ee12d.png","batch":"Summer 2026","industry":"Industrials","tags":["Hard Tech","Robotics","Energy","Defense","Industrial"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/33408"}}